She Was My Best Friend
by lovingthis
Summary: A short piece about Don and Charlie's childhood and one of their friends- there isn't really any other way to describe it. My first Numb3rs fic. Please let me know what you think.


**Hello! This is my first Numb3rs fic! Ooh excitement! I have to admit I have no idea why I felt the need to give this the name "She Was My Best Friend" especially as it isn't in Don's POV! **

**This is, pretty much, from an idea I had a while back and about thirty minutes ago I decided to sit down and write it out. (I have an exam tomorrow so am procrastinating!) Unfortunately, I don't really know what to do with it now! **

**Well, as sad as it is I do not own Numb3rs. But I do like it! **

**Enjoy!**

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><p>They'd been best friends since she was three years old, granted Don was seven at the time, but the age difference didn't matter. Their mothers had been friends in <em>their<em> childhood and after Sam's family moved back to the area they had bumped into each other at the park. Sam's mother used to tell her how she'd dropped her ice-cream cone while the women were talking and Don had shared the rest of his with her. The girl would claim that she remembered that day but Don would say to her that she was making it up; he wouldn't share his mint chocolate chip ice-cream with _anyone_- something he enjoyed proving on a regular basis. It didn't matter, they were inseparable from day one.

Sam, like Charlie, was a child genius and had been placed in Don's class at the same time Charlie was. For Don it softened the blow of having his baby brother in the same form; he got his best friend too.

In the later years as they grew up Sam would sneak to the Eppes' house and climb the tree outside Don's window. They'd sit for hours and talk or mess around. The Eppes parents just fixed up the spare room for Sam so she could have dinner with them and stay the night with ease. The child had more of her possessions at Don's than she did at her own home. But it didn't matter, since her mother died she was part of the Eppes family. Not her real one.

Sometimes, at night, after they were put to bed, one of the teenagers would feel the need to be with the other. They'd pick up their duvet and pillow, walk along the landing to the other's room and curl up on the other's bed. The times that each wanted to see the other and met in the hallway they'd tumble downstairs and rearranged the furniture. The table would be pulled into the entrance (for a sleepy Chuck to hit his legs on in the morning) and the two couches would be pushed together. Then, they would sleep sandwiched between warm covers.

In the mornings after those nights 'Mummy Eppes' and 'Daddy Eppes' would find Charlie squashed between the two older children. They'd long since come to terms with the fact Sam was like one of their own, she loved their two boys dearly and every time Charlie hurt himself on the table he would be ushered into the makeshift bed so he wouldn't cry. Sam proved a great bond between the boys, even when Charlie left, taking their mother from Don.

The parents never told any of the kids, but sometimes, when there was more than two in a bed, they would find their Polaroid camera and snap a few pictures. After over twenty years even the very first were still hidden in a box in Alan's room.

As expected, boy and girl, best friends as they grew older, they developed feeling. But feelings, as we all know, don't necessarily get results. Sam would always remember how she hated Don's first girlfriend with a passion. And the second, third, fourth…

Then was Don's eighteenth birthday, his coming of age as it were. He'd planned it to a t. Unlike every other birthday he had, his family was out. Today was the day he told Sam how he felt for her. That was, unfortunately, the day Sam's father moved her out of state.

Don never told his family what happened that evening, not fully at least. He would say that she rejected him and left. Initially, in his hurt and anger, he blamed Charlie. Sam had, that night, mentioned she'd seen the younger brother and while she told Charlie she wasn't planning on seeing Don that day, Charlie had urged her to go, saying, unsubtly, that Don needed to tell her something.

The rift between the brothers grew and over time, started to break their mothers heart. Her two baby boys were at ill ease with one another and the girl she called her daughter was the root cause. As the years passed Don ran from the family and Charlie hid in his math. It was only after the lady's death that they started to learn to love and respect one another once more.

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><p><strong>Okay, I've had a few questions so I think I'll clarify. I know Don's like 3-4 years older than Sam in this so yeah an 18 year old Don admitting his feelings to a 14-15 year old girl could seem.. odd. But for me I feel his feelings for her are... I don't like using this word but honourable. (I do have other things in their history in my head which fortifies this idea, but I'm the author so I'd know that yea!) <strong>

**Let me know what you think! I will be extremely grateful and maybe, once I've completed my exam tomorrow, I'll sit down and do something else with this!**

**Thanks.**


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